Bitcoin fell below $84,000 after Iranian attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz intensified, pushing Brent crude above $101 a barrel and driving up bond yields and the dollar.
Key points:
- Losses were deeper among smaller cryptocurrencies, with the "CoinDesk 80" index falling about 4% over 24 hours, compared with 2.5% for the "CoinDesk 5." DeFi tokens fell about 6%, and the meme coin index dropped about 5%; only a few coins, such as SAND, PUMP, and STX, rose.
- Liquidations surged 235% to $547 million over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass, including $174 million in Ethereum (ETH) positions. ETH is trading at $2,600, down 3.5%.
- U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw inflows of $119 million on Tuesday, marking the fourth day of positive inflows in the past five sessions.
- Minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s September meeting (at which it raised interest rates by 0.25%) are due later Wednesday, as weak jobs data reduces the likelihood of another hike this month.
- Futures trading volume rose 16% to $182.85 billion, while open interest fell 1% to $152.60 billion. Sell orders accounted for more than 52% of trading volume.
- Bitcoin futures contracts rose to 660,000 BTC, recovering from an 11-month low of 626,000, but remain well below the record of 800,000 BTC.
- Whale positions were mixed: bullish on Bitcoin on Binance, and bearish to neutral on OKX, while bearish on ETH, SOL, and XRP on Binance.
- Layer-2 tokens led the declines following the closure of Pudgy Penguins’ “Abstract,” the second Layer-2 network to shut down in a week. Optimism (OP) fell 10%, Mantle (MNT) about 10%, and Arbitrum (ARB) about 7%.
- Cardano (ADA) fell 7.5% despite announcing that it would enable token issuers to freeze and seize assets.
- Uniswap (UNI) fell about 9% and Lido (LDO) 8%, while Sand (SAND) rose 9% for the second time this week after jumping 37% on October 2. Stacks (STX) gained 4%, and Monero (XMR) about 1%.